


free fall

by orphan_account



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Avengers AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-03 00:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4080184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The woman has long, dark, curly hair and pale skin that looks like it’s glowing under the lights of the library and Laura knows it’s her like she knows that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. For some reason, she just <i>knows</i>.</p><p>Maybe a spider can sense when another is walking the threads of their web.</p><p>(Or! The Avengers AU no one really asked for but I wrote anyways.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own anything you recognize! Based off that ask Ellen answered a really long time ago about what Avenger each member of the gang would be. And also inspired by all the artwork that stemmed from that because holy shit this fandom is talented.
> 
> Many thanks to everyone that's read this over for me and/or listened to me whine about it. You guys are the best!

It’s a Tuesday when Laura finds the map.

Well no, that’s a lie; she doesn’t find the map so much as it falls out of a dead body hanging from a fire escape.

She’s on her way home from work and cutting through the alleyway behind the supermarket – she knows her Dad wouldn’t approve, but it cuts her walk in half and _seriously_ , she’s what a lot of people are calling Spider-man; _no one_ is going to get the best of her in dark alleys – when a rolled up piece of paper smacks her in the head.

At first she can’t make out exactly where the scroll type thing has come from because her glasses are splattered with rain, but when she finally manages to register that the mass hanging almost directly above her head is a person, her throat clogs and a chill goes up her spine. Before she can do anything else about it, though, the unmistakable sound of sirens approaching reaches her ears.

Laura takes a look around, picks up the map, and continues on her way home.

 

* * *

 

It all started a few years ago when she was on a high school field trip to Oscorp. Laura can still remember the pinch in her neck as a spider bit into her skin. When she thinks about it now, actually, she kind of wants to kick herself for not grabbing a pamphlet at the front desk about the Oscorp spiders or something. It certainly would have saved her a lot of trouble.

And a lot of furniture. _That_ had been particularly difficult to explain to her parents.

And maybe, _maybe_ , a little more research on her part would have saved the lives of two people that she loved the most.

 

* * *

 

Gwen was –

Gwen was sunshine and butterflies and Laura sometimes still forgets that she’s dead.

Like now, with the map spread out on her floor, the first thing that still comes to her mind when she sees something that doesn’t make sense is: Call Gwen.

But she can’t call her. Not anymore.

She knows – she’s been told millions of times, too – that missing Gwen will get easier with time, but it hasn’t been. She still misses having someone who knows everything about her and loves her anyway.

It’s easier to not miss Gwen when she’s occupied, Laura has found, and the map is interesting enough. It’s a lot bigger than she expected. She’s able to tell easily that it’s Manhattan or at least an island that resembles it. The legend’s in a different language though; probably Russian judging by the writing, and it looks _old_. Not even old as in wrinkled, but old as in some buildings on the map that are labeled by their English names no longer exist as far as Laura knows.

She’s about to get up and walk over to her desk to do some much needed research when her door opens to reveal her father. He looks down at the map and then back up at her, a question clearly written on his face.

“School project.” Laura says before he even asks out loud. “On, um, 1940’s New York City life. It’s due tomorrow. Is dinner ready?”

He shakes his head, “Do you need any help with that?”

“No, uh, why are you – “ She has to clear her throat. “What brings you up – why are you in my room? Dad?”

The lying doesn’t get any easier with time either.

“Just checking on you, you were in an awful hurry leaving this morning. Everything okay?”

 _Oh yeah_ , there’d been a bank robbery before she could even finish her breakfast. She’d almost forgotten.

“No, yeah. Everything’s good. Just wanted to be a little early today. Midterms, you know?”

“I understand that. Next time, get up earlier. You know I don’t like you missing breakfast.”

“Yes, Dad.”

He looks her over again and Laura feels her cheeks heat up at the attention. She’s never been good at lying and she’s even worse at doing so when her father is the one she’s lying to.

“Alright, dinner’ll be ready in fifteen.” He starts walking away and she can feel herself relaxing on the spot. “If you need help with your map, I took cartography courses in college.”

“Thanks!” She calls down the hall as she shuts her door. She closes it entirely too hard on accident, though. The walls of her bedroom shake a little and a picture of Gwen flutters off the wall and onto the ground.

 _Time_ , she reminds herself. She only needs time.

 

* * *

 

It takes Laura three weeks to figure out that the map is a treasure map.

Between working to take pictures of herself swinging around New York City fighting crime and actually swinging around New York City fighting crime, she falls a little bit behind on school work. The fake kind, especially, and the map sits on the floor of her bedroom untouched for much longer than she likes.

She gets to spend a quiet Saturday with her nose buried in it soon enough and when she’s finally able to work out that there are scribbled coordinates on the back of the map – the numbers are written in shorthand in their word form, in Russian no less, and she’s not proud to admit it takes her a whole day to figure out what they could possibly be for – she can see that the points fall in two lines that intersect over what is a portion of Central Park.

 _X_ marks the spot, right?

She makes plans, tells her Dad she has a double lecture that will run late on Thursday night, and heads to school with her suit under her normal clothes.

 

* * *

 

Laura’s sitting in the Silas University Library when she first makes eye contact with the Black Widow. It’s Thursday afternoon and she’s just waiting for the sun to set before heading off to Central Park when she realizes that someone has been staring at her for an indefinite amount of time.

The woman has long, dark, curly hair and pale skin that looks like it’s glowing under the lights of the library and Laura knows it’s her like she knows that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. For some reason, she just _knows_.

Maybe a spider can sense when another is walking the threads of their web.

She looks younger than Laura expected – she’s done the research on other people who associate themselves with spiders and the Widow is at the top of the list, of course she’s aware of the other woman’s existence and even assumed that they’d meet at some point being spider people and all – and the photographer in her wants to sit and admire the symmetry in the Widow’s face, but the smarter, more logical side is screaming _run_.

So she sheds her clothes in the nearest bathroom and stashes her backpack under a loose cement block on the school’s rooftop.

Within minutes, she’s put a comfortable distance in between herself and the school.

 

* * *

 

Central Park turns out to be a dead end.

Laura figures she better quit before nine so she can make it back home before her Dad starts to worry, which he typically starts doing after ten. She swings by the school building again to get her stuff and then heads up to the roof to make her way home.

She likes walking home and hopping rooftops on quiet nights like these instead of flinging herself from building to building and relying on her webs in order to get there. Walking also comes with the added benefit of being able to take off her mask, which she does almost immediately, and the freedom to shake out her hair.

Laura tries to focus on balancing on the edge of the roof while she walks, but she can’t seem to lose the curiosity that’s implanted itself inside her about the identity and the circumstances of the dead man. He had not been mentioned in the news at all and the police never even reported finding a dead body. What was he doing that got him killed? It wasn’t for treasure or whatever those plotted points were - the map was still on him after his death - and she really doesn’t have much else to go on other than that.

She’s still thinking about it when she senses that someone is following her. The feeling starts at the base of her skull and spreads to the rest of her body. She doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is, though.

Laura just hopes the Widow hasn’t been sent to kill her because then she definitely won’t make it home until _way_ past ten.

“For a spider,” A voice from behind her drawls, “you really are very colorful.”

Laura doesn’t turn around, instead she adjusts the straps of her backpack as she talks and walks, “I like to warn potential predators.”

The Widow hums in response and Laura can only hear her own footsteps again, but she knows the assassin is still tailing her.

“Are you gonna follow me home? Because I don’t think my Dad would like it if I brought home a pet.”

“I don’t need to follow you to get to your web, sweetheart.” _Well, then_.

“Have you been sent to kill me, then?”

There’s a pause before she replies, “Is this how you greet all your friends?”

Laura quickens her pace slightly so she can leap the gap in between two residential buildings. The Widow follows and Laura turns around for the first time to watch her companion make the jump like she’s only playing a more advanced game of hopscotch.

“We’re friends, huh?”

“Laura Hollis, twenty-one, friendly neighborhood Spider-man.” The other woman has a smirk playing on her impossibly flawless features. “Freelance photographer, I even know where you get your groceries. _I’d_ say we’re friends.”

“The Black Widow.” The smirk deepens if that’s at all possible. “Stalker.”

“Master assassin.” The Black Widow corrects her and then after a moment seems to come to a sort of realization. “Potato _potato_.”

Laura wants to keep walking because it’s getting late, but she’d rather fight to the death here than at her front door so she says, “ _And_ we keep coming back to how you follow people before you kill them.”

The Black Widow takes a step closer and Laura starts to slip her backpack off.

“I’m not here to kill you, little spider.” She doesn’t remember ever being threatened by a smile before this moment. “The Director has asked me to bring you in.”


	2. Chapter 2

One time, during her senior year of high school, Laura got so pissed off at a teacher that she used her webs to stick him to his chair. She hadn’t gotten caught despite the fact that she fully expected to and the relief after the end of the school day had made her laugh almost all the way home.

She feels this same relief coursing through her veins at the Widow’s words and her laughter seems to ring out against the dark sky.

“Did I say something funny?”

“I thought you were here to kill me.” Laura says, shrugging on her backpack and beginning to walk again. “I was _not_ expecting that.”

“If I was here to kill you you’d be dead by now.”

“What a sweet thing to say – what did you say your name was again?”

“I didn’t.” The Widow replies airily. “It’s Carmilla.”

“Well, I’m glad you hadn’t tried to kill me, Carmilla. That wouldn’t have worked out very well for you.”

This time it’s the Black Widow who laughs.

“What? Did I say something funny?”

“I mean it when I say that if I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”

Laura highly doubts it, but she doesn’t feel like arguing with a master assassin at the moment so she lets it go, “So. The Director wants to bring me in, hey? What are they exactly The Director of?”

“SHIELD.” The Black Widow says slowly. “Are you playing stupid or are you actually stupid?”

“And you’re _rude_. Good to know.”

“We have to talk about this tonight. Tight schedule and all.”

Laura looks back at her incredulously, “I have to get home. You couldn’t have asked me to talk during the day?”

“You disappeared to God knows where for five hours, cupcake. You didn’t exactly have a schedule I could work with.”

“Could’ve followed me.”

“No, I searched through your bag instead.” Laura turns to glare at her, but the Widow only smiles back. “The Itsy Bitsy Spider playlist on your iPod was a nice touch – “

The web that shoots out of Laura’s right wrist interrupts her sentence. Well, her ducking to avoid said web aimed for her mouth might be a more accurate descriptor actually.

“You’re a little trigger-happy there, Spidey.”

“Are you always this annoying?”

“Only when I’m not allowed to kill a mark.” That smile again. “I can meet you tomorrow, will that work for you?”

“Sure.” Laura is desperate to get rid of her at this point. “When and where?”

“You’ll know.”

 

* * *

 

Laura spends her night doing research on SHIELD. She doesn’t find too much, just confirmation that it exists and that the Widow isn’t completely lying to lure her into a trap and kill her.

Well, actually, the Widow very well could be lying and setting a trap to kill her, but Laura isn’t getting that vibe from her. She feels like she wouldn’t have noticed the fact she was being followed unless the Black Widow _wanted_ her to notice it. The thought is equal parts chilling and comforting.

 

* * *

 

She has the day off from school the next day so she perches herself on her favorite rooftop, mask off, passing time by reading her Biology textbook. She wonders if Carmilla will make an appearance or if she’ll wait until the dead of night again.

It’s weird thinking of her as Carmilla. It’s such a _normal_ name and nothing about the Black Widow screams normal. The amount of grace that woman possesses is lethal. Surely even those without heightened senses can see that.

Around lunchtime, Laura gets to discourage two muggers in separate incidents. She also catches a man running away from the police after having shot his wife. The looks on the faces of the cops when she’d dropped the shooter off at their doorstep via a cocoon of silk was well worth the wasted web cartridge.

It’s only when she’s back on her rooftop, legs swinging over the edge, that the back of her skull starts tingling again. A quick glance to her right confirms what she already knew.

“Nice of you to join me.” The Black Widow says. She’s in plain clothes, sunglasses in one hand and a McDonald’s bag in the other. She drops down to sit on Laura’s left.

“Been here a while?”

“Long enough.” She hands the McDonald’s bag over and Laura, realizing her hunger, takes it without hesitation. The fries are still warm and she stuffs a few into her mouth before tilting the container in Carmilla’s direction. The other woman only shakes her head and says, “How do you know I didn’t poison those?”

Laura shrugs and smiles her widest smile, “If you wanted to kill me I’d be dead by now.”

“Nice memory.”

“Let’s talk about SHIELD.” Laura isn’t surprised that her favourite burger is also in the bag. The girl knows where she lives already, there probably isn’t much that’s gotten by her. “Why exactly would they want someone like me?”

Carmilla looks at her as if to say _duh_ before saying, “Why _wouldn’t_ they want an overgrown child whose claim to fame is being bitten by an Oscorp spider?”

Laura shoots another web at her mouth for that one, but Carmilla just bends backwards to avoid it in a way that leaves Laura feeling like she physically can not be anything but impressed.

“Well I’m not about to start stalking unassuming college girls so you can tell them I’m not interested.”

“Did you even research this at all?” The Widow lifts herself back up into her rigid posture. “That’s not what we do.”

“I _know_ what you do. You’re Homeland Security on steroid drugs, Carmilla. I’m not interested in that, either.”

Carmilla is silent for too long and Laura is halfway to standing up and walking away because the sun is setting and seriously, she has places to be, but a hand on her elbow stops her.

“Don’t you hate it?” Her eyes are strangely hollow and her shoulders sag a little. “When you close the door and the knob falls off because you don’t know your own strength? How you can’t remember what your mother sounds like because she's been dead for so long? Because I do.”

Laura stays stock still, there’s a vulnerability in the Widow’s eyes that seems like it doesn’t belong.

“There are hundreds of girls right now who are being made into weapons just like me. That's what we're fighting. Aren’t you interested in stopping that?”

Laura sits back down.

 

* * *

 

On Saturday, Laura waits for Carmilla up on the rooftop. She's in her suit, mask and all. She had told her Dad that she'd be out with a friend for the evening and he was so pleased at the idea of her having friends again that he'd immediately said, "I won't wait up."

It almost made her want to take back the lie. _Almost_.

Carmilla comes along just as the sunlight is melting into faint pink spots on the horizon. Laura can't help but be impressed by the way she makes the outfit work.

“ _What_ is that made out of?” Laura asks without thinking, unable to take her eyes off of the dark material covering the other woman’s body.

The Widow smirks and dips into a mock curtsy that is too graceful and practiced to be truly considered a mockery. Laura notices not for the first time how effortlessly elegant Carmilla is and she wonders in the back of her mind exactly how well this natural fluidity translates in a fight.

“You think you can give me a ride to where we need to go?”

It takes a moment for the question to fully register in Laura’s mind and when it does, her brain immediately flashes back to Gwen stepping closer to her on this same rooftop. She wants to say no to Carmilla, but it _does_ make more sense than walking.

“Where?”

“Brooklyn.” Carmilla rattles an address off and Laura nods a few times. More for her own benefit than for the Widow’s.

As if she can sense Laura’s discomfort, Carmilla moves slowly, holding eye contact the whole time. Laura nods once when Carmilla stills and seems to ask for permission. She braces herself and allows the Black Widow to step on her feet while both of Carmilla’s arms snake around her waist. Carmilla’s chin is a warm weight that settles on her shoulder.

Chest to chest with a master assassin; _how the hell did she even get herself into this mess_?

Laura secures an arm around her passenger, takes a breath, and leaps off of the roof.

The first thing that she can think of is how different this is from taking Gwen. Gwen had screamed at the feeling of free-falling through the New York skyline and Laura had laughed at her predictable reaction. Carmilla, however -

Laura probably should have expected this. She’s stoic, calm despite Laura taking a second longer than what is probably comfortable before anchoring the two of them to another building. She swings them forward and sideways, and Carmilla’s breathing doesn’t change throughout. Laura smiles almost unconsciously at the thought of breaking the Black Widow’s composure and she makes sure to challenge gravity a few times, even going as far as flipping both of them upside down for several moments in mid-air.

As much as Laura can tell, though, Carmilla doesn’t even flinch.

Laura lands softly on her heels just a few buildings down from their destination and Carmilla untangles their limbs before stepping off onto the sidewalk. Laura almost feels cold without Carmilla’s warmth enveloping her and she has to shake her head a few times in order to focus. She watches Carmilla intently, looking for a misstep, _anything_ to point to the Black Widow being even remotely rattled. Her companion is all steady legs and long strides, however.

But she does get a, “You are a horrible driver, cupcake.”

It makes her smile.

 

* * *

 

She sits in a meeting with a man behind a desk for a lot longer than she’d like.

Laura doesn’t pay much attention to his introductory speech or his spiel on why he knows she’ll succeed at SHIELD. She does take care to commit every detail of his much more compact statements about the mission to memory, though.

He goes on for a few more minutes about how now that the team is fully assembled, they can move their work back to headquarters in California and Laura has to butt in with the fact that she has _six more weeks_ of her semester left and how she _can’t_ just up and move to California after midterm exams. He seems to understand and Carmilla, leant against the wall with her arms crossed, only outright smiles her obnoxious smile for a total of about five minutes afterwards.

After the meeting, Laura gets handed a memory stick by The Director with specific instructions _not_ to lose it as if she’d do so on purpose. Carmilla then leads her out into the hallway where she’s met with the calculating stares of three strangers.

“Well,” says the taller of the two redheads after studying Laura. “looks like we have ourselves another spider.”


	3. Chapter 3

The memory stick seems to hold hundreds of thousands of files.

Laura begins looking through them as soon as she gets home on Saturday night. She starts with the ones related to the history of the Red Room and the new developments pertaining to it. The gist of the mission seems to be: find the Red Room and — Laura’s hands shake a little at the thought — eliminate all threats.

There are pictures of young girls in ballet outfits in the files, identical looks of steely-eyed determination in their eyes. Carmilla’s words — _there are hundreds of girls right now who are being made into weapons just like me_   — are still ringing in her head.

She wants to stop this.

She stays up for what seems like hours, reading and sorting through the files of everyone involved in the Black Widow Program. She only stops and rubs at her eyes when, after clicking the “next” button, a familiar face stares back at her from the screen.

Karnstein, Carmilla.

Logically, she knows she’d come across Carmilla’s file sooner rather than later, but she’d really rather not deal with this now after how long her day had been. So Laura shuts down her computer and falls asleep to the sounds and smells of the rain coming in through her open window.

 

* * *

 

Her dream leaves her with reality blurring at the edges. She was back at the edge of that building, watching Gwen fall over the edge over and over again. Every time, Laura would shoot a web out to catch her. Every time, the crack of her spine still sounds over the rush of wind in Laura's ears and _every time_ , Gwen still died.

This is partly how she manages to not startle when she opens her eyes to the sight of the Black Widow perched on her windowsill.

Carmilla is wearing street clothes. Black jeans paired with a black jacket with the hood drawn up. She has a paper bag in one hand and Laura knows its food without even having to really think about it. She reaches for it as soon as she gets up and takes it to her desk, unable to stop the appreciative hum that she lets out when she sees the waffles and the chocolate sauce that complements them.

Carmilla says, “You eat like a teenaged boy.”

Laura smiles around a particularly large bite of waffle and starts up her laptop, “I can lift, like, two teenaged boys.”

“Still, must you be so sloppy?” Laura turns to her computer when she sees Carmilla’s eye roll. “You do all the reading from last night?”

Laura scoffs, “No.”

“Where’d you end off?”

“Well,” Laura types in her password before turning to look at Carmilla again. “you.”

“Carmilla Karnstein, born in Stalingrad sometime in the late 1920’s. Graduate of the Red Room Academy. Survivor. Potential threat until just over ten years ago.” Carmilla clears her throat. “Move on.”

“You know, it’s a shame you’re not Catwoman or something like that.” Laura grins as the Widow tilts her head in question. “At your age, you’re literally a cougar.”

“If only I was allowed to shoot you.”

Laura pulls up the files and tries to find where she’d ended off. There is _so much_ information here that she now completely understands why The Director had given her that speech about not losing this flash drive. It’s like an encyclopedia of the Red Room.

“What changed?” Laura asks, scanning over the pages she’d already read last night just in case she’d missed a key detail.

“My — the Widowmaker had a scientific breakthrough. She’s been able to strengthen the girls to the point where killing each other off is almost unnecessary. They have numbers and when you add that to the mental manipulation - “

“You get an army. One that doesn’t look like your typical army either.” Laura turns around completely in her chair and nods. “I know _that_. I was asking about ten years ago. How did you go from potential threat to SHIELD’s very own Charlotte’s Web?”

The look on Carmilla’s face softens.

“They sent their best in to kill me.” Her eyes have that off-balanced look again. “Agent Kirsch made a different call.”

 

* * *

 

What Laura knows is this:

The Red Room Academy is now once again up and running, but instead of having their own 28-girl version of the Hunger Games to crown Russia’s Next Top Spy, they’ve found a way to make these girls into bloodthirsty savages with most of Captain America’s supernatural abilities — The Black Widow was supposed to be a part of Russia's response to Cap according to the files, which makes sense — and Carmilla’s ruthlessness. And there aren’t just 28 of them either. Thousands of girls have now been reported missing in the Russian countryside. Hundreds have turned up dead, traces of the Black Widow Program still in their bloodstreams. Hundreds more are still unaccounted for.

An ideal army.

She also knows from having done her reading that one of these girls had been in New York recently with an ex-KGB agent, running for freedom. The two were killed before the team could even contact them.

What Laura doesn’t know is this:

_Why hasn’t anyone done anything to stop this?_

 

* * *

 

Carmilla’s admission about Kirsch being the one to take her away from a life that isn’t her own sheds a lot of light on why the team works the way it does.

Laura finds herself heading over to the brownstone in Brooklyn after school almost everyday. She is usually greeted by the sight of Carmilla standing over either Kirsch or Captain _freaking_ America on the sparring mat. LaFontaine – whom Laura has learned never to anger after an incident that involved a stray web waking a huge green monster – is always sat at their computer, typing away.

When she gets there, everyone typically stops what they’re doing to gather around the kitchen table and talk about any progress that has been made. Laura, because of the fact that she knows the city better than anyone else, has been put in charge of looking for clues about where the two Russians were staying and what they could have been doing that led to their deaths. She tries not to be disheartened by the fact that the focus of the mission is finding where exactly these girls are being made into weapons of destruction, but their only lead are the deaths of two people of interest. She succeeds. Most of the time.

“Do you have anything that I can go off of?” Laura asks once everyone is sitting down. It’s been about two weeks since she first joined the team. Two weeks of fruitless searching and settling for the McDonald’s meals Carmilla brings her because she has no time to go home and eat home-cooked food. “This city is massive.”

“I’m sorry, bro.” Kirsch smiles apologetically. “I’ve told you everything we have on them. Just blank paper on the man and a makeup bag on the woman. At least the makeup bag, like, gave us DNA to trace her back to the Red Room because otherwise we would have literally had nothing.”

“You had me swearing on my life that she was a Widow, was that not enough?” Carmilla bites out after Kirsch finishes talking.

“Milla you had no source or reason to believe that other than gut instinct. Fury would have roasted us all alive – “

Carmilla’s eyes flash dangerously. She looks over at Laura and says, “I _knew_. You just know when another spider’s crawling on your web.”

“Yeah.” Laura agrees, feeling the tension that inevitably comes when Kirsch and Carmilla and the Red Room are all lumped together. “Yeah, she’s right.”

“Okay,” Danny sets her hands down on the table and, as usual, commands all attention as soon as she begins speaking. “All we have: blank paper and makeup bag. Do you have anything?”

Laura shakes her head. She had been combing alleyways and hostels and hole in the wall restaurants asking its patrons and owners if they’d seen a girl matching the Russian woman’s description. Once she had even brought Carmilla along as the devastated sister for effect. Still, nothing.

“We’ll come back and revisit it tomorrow.” Danny - she’s told Laura countless of times she prefers to be called that rather than Captain - stands and pushes in the chair she’s vacated before leaving.

Kirsch says something about target practice in the basement and LaFontaine is quick to join him after he mentions wanting to experiment with the aerodynamics of arrows or something along those lines. Truth be told, Laura’s focus is on Carmilla.

“You gonna leave?” Carmilla says as soon as everyone else has slipped out of the kitchen’s open doorway.

Laura shrugs, “Maybe.”

“I could use a sparring partner.”

 

* * *

 

By the time her back hits the mat for the fifth time, Laura’s about ready to swear on her life that Carmilla actually has eight legs.

“How are you doing this?” She pants, getting back to her feet as quickly as she can manage while Carmilla leans back on her heels, waiting.

“It’s easy, you’re distracted.” Laura makes the first move and there’s a moment where she loses herself watching Carmilla’s hair as the other woman dodges the hit. And then she’s on her back again. “Plenty of time to stare at me later, cutie.”

Laura’s pretty sure her blush matches the color of the suit that she’s currently not wearing.

“This would be going very differently if I had my webs.”

“I would also have my guns.” Carmilla smirks as they resume again. She’s even quicker than Laura expected and so damn efficient with her movements that Laura is finding it really really difficult to not stare even when she’s taking hits.

“There’s a bicep joke in there somewhere.” Laura mumbles and Carmilla laughs a flighty melodic thing that makes Laura smile.

Eventually, _eventually_ , Laura manages to wrestle Carmilla to the ground, knees at the sides of Carmilla’s waist. It isn’t easy to keep her perch, though, because Carmilla keeps _squirming_ and they’re both sweaty to the point that their skin is slippery.

Laura lays a hand flat against her sparring partner’s bare stomach and pushes down to keep her in place, “Can you just accept that I put you on your back and that I’m a better wrestler?”

Carmilla shakes her head.

When they both manage to get back to their feet, it’s clearly something like pride on the line. It takes Carmilla about twice the time it took Laura to return the favor and when she’s on her back for what feels like the forty-fifth time in the last two hours, Laura suddenly becomes very aware that she’s only in a tank top and shorts and that Carmilla, now above her, is only in a sports bra and spandex pants that go down to her calves.

“Admitting your loss yet, buttercup?”

“It was a draw.”

“Oh please.”

Laura stares up at her and thinks _oh to hell with it_ before bucking her hips up in an attempt to unseat the smug little thing. It backfires slightly, though, because Carmilla’s hands end up clutching at the hem of Laura’s tank top, her knuckles sliding against the skin underneath.

It makes Laura want to groan.

“Draw.” Carmilla says in a lower voice than normal. Her eyes are darker than what Laura remembers them being. She scrambles up on feet and Laura is left looking up at her from the ground. “It was a draw.”

 

* * *

 

It takes almost a month more of searching and finding exactly nothing before Laura reaches her near breaking point.

“The blank paper, have we ruled out invisible ink?” Laura kicks Carmilla under the table when the Widow snorts at her suggestion. “I’m serious. Have we?”

“I’ve checked for everything.” LaF gets up. “I’ll go get it and you and your Spidey senses can have a go at it?”

Laura rolls her eyes at the use of the term, but waits patiently until LaF gets back. She almost drops out of her chair when she sees the blank scroll of paper, though. It looks identical to a map she had had spread out on her bedroom floor for a better part of a month. A map that she had rolled up and thrown under her bed. A map in _Russian_ that she had completely forgotten about.

“I have something like that in my bedroom.”

 

* * *

 

“So what are you thinking here?” Carmilla’s wrapped around her again as she tries to get the two of them back to her bedroom as fast as possible, but also in one piece. Laura almost has to yell in order to make sure Carmilla can hear her over the rush of wind against their faces. “Who was that guy hanging from the fire escape? Did he kill the Russians or was he one of them?”

“Does it really matter?” She can feel the vibrations that come from Carmilla talking against her own chest. “Maybe he was a decoy and they switched up the scrolls by accident. Maybe he stole it and was going to get away with it, but he got killed. I don’t know. I _do_ know you could have died in that alley. What the hell were you thinking?”

Laura chooses to ignore that.

“You really didn’t see the me looking at the map when you were stalking me?”

“No, I stayed away from your house as much as possible back then.” Carmilla says airily as they land in a back alley half a block from Laura’s house. The Black Widow steps back as Laura pulls out jeans, boots, and a hoodie from her backpack. She starts to layer clothing over her suit — removing the portion that covers her hands and her mask — and Carmilla just stands back, a look of amusement on her face.

“Act normal around my Dad.”

“Sweetheart, you’re the one with a spandex suit on under your clothes.”

Laura just glares.

 

* * *

 

Her Dad likes Carmilla, Laura decides once they’re finally free to go on up to her room by themselves. He likes how she’s polite and slightly uneasy under the warmth she exudes. Laura has been around her enough to know it’s an act.

“You’re charming when you want to be, you know that?”

“It’s my job.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Laura replies as she drops to her knees beside her bed. She peeks under and sighs. “I can’t reach it. Pass me my gloves?”

Carmilla tosses one over and Laura slips it on, flicks her wrist to better the angle, and pulls her hand back to hand Carmilla the scroll.

“It even feels like it weighs the same as the other one.” Carmilla comments, watching as the paper unfurls in her grip. “Is this why you hightailed it to Central Park that day?”

Laura nods.

"Move your things off the ground, we can spread this out."

"We're not gonna bring it back to the team?" Laura is already doing what she's been told. "Shouldn't we do that?"

"I'm the only one out of all of us that can read Russian. I think I call the shots here."

Laura doesn't object to that. She holds a corner of the map down by sitting on it. Carmilla does the same opposite.

"What have we got here?" Carmilla sounds like she's talking to a toddler and examining one of their toys or something. "This is a horrible map of Manhattan."

"It's outdated." Laura agrees.

"It looks like someone drew it from memory." Carmilla purses her lips and traces the compass. "And the compass is all wrong."

Laura allows her to examine it closely in silence. Her face smooths over in focus and she looks _young_ . Laura knows it's impossible because Carmilla was born in the 20's, but the way she looks right now with her head bowed and legs crossed  — she looks younger than Laura herself feels.

"Ugh. Goddamnit." Carmilla all of a sudden withdraws her hand from where she had been absentmindedly tracing at the edge of the map. Laura can see blood dripping from the other girl's index finger and immediately stands to grab a band aid from her desk drawer. She slams the drawer shut too forcefully, however, and Gwen's picture falls off the wall again.

A heartbeat passes when all there is is silence save for the sounds of traffic leaking through Laura’s bedroom window and the creak of the pipes beneath walls. As is the case almost every time Gwen comes to mind, Laura is transported back to one specific night so many months ago and it takes Carmilla softly clearing her throat to shake her out of the daze.

"Who is that?" Carmilla asks after Laura hands her the bandaid and bends down to pick the picture up off of the floor.

"Gwen. She was — we were together, but she fell and I tried to save her, but — " Laura ducks her head to avoid Carmilla's eyes and she ends up focusing on the drop of blood seeping through the map. Suddenly, Gwen is the furthest thing on her mind. "Uh, Carm? Is that new stuff appearing on the map because you spilled blood on it?"

Carmilla turns her head, swipes her finger over the map, and watches as new spots of ink appear in the parts smeared with red, “You gotta be kidding me.”


	4. Chapter 4

They end up taking the map back to Brooklyn after all, but only after Laura talks Carmilla down from taking the pocket knife she carries around and cutting open the back of her leg with it. There’s a look of single-mindedness in her eyes that scares Laura because it reminds her of the Red Room ballerinas all lined up, gazing at the camera in an unspoken challenge. It reminds Laura a little bit that Carmilla is not all food in brown paper bags and steady breathing as the two of them swing through New York. It reminds her that underneath all of that is a girl who was unmade and remade so many times that it’s a wonder she still knows which way is up.

LaF has a container of blood stashed in the basement freezer and Laura doesn’t even bother asking why, knowing that the answer will inevitably be _for science_. When the whole map has been carefully painted over with blood, it becomes painfully clear that it was never meant to be a map of Manhattan.

“What is this?”

Carmilla's eyes are bright and unnatural and there is something about the look on her face that startles Laura.

"This is Stalingrad." Carmilla says, fingers dancing along where a river is marked. "Looks like I'm making a homecoming.”

 

* * *

 

Stalingrad, now known as Volgograd. Russia's industrial hub. Home to oil refineries and steel factories and, apparently, widowmakers.

Laura wonders how she's gonna be able to justify a Russian adventure to her Dad.

They paint the other blank scroll with blood as well only to discover it still blank. Someone, Laura can't even remember which one of them does it, throws it out.

Captain — no, _Danny_ points to the points marked on the map, "Safehouses. Most likely. Agent Karnstein translated the labels to mean as much. The question is, where is their headquarters? Where are these girls being trained and turned on a daily basis?"

Before anyone can stop her, Laura stands and grabs a marker that's lying on the table and she starts connecting the dots just like she'd done with the Manhattan map. Except this time, she's running on pure instinct instead of using a ruler to draw a straight line. It's like when she's slinging through the city, every movement feels practiced to her, like she's drawing on muscle memory. When she's finished, a large web is staring back at her on the page.

"Well that's useful." LaF comments, eyebrow raised. "But where in this big _big_ web would we start looking for the source?"

This time, it's Carmilla who provides an answer. She points to the centre of the web with her bandaged finger. The circle has about a two or three city block radius.

"We start where the silk is strongest."

A hum of agreement goes up around the table, but Laura can only nod when Carmilla smiles at her in a way that looks more like she's baring fangs rather than displaying positive emotion.

 

* * *

 

As eager as all of them are to leave, they have to wait a full week before they’re able to take off in a plane SHIELD had provided. Laura has _midterms_ and it takes an Oscar-worthy performance from Carmilla and herself to convince her father that a half-semester exchange to Russia is a good idea. Someone high up in SHIELD dealt with the university.

She’s nervous the morning they leave and it doesn’t help that the plane is unlike anything she had ever seen before. Carmilla and Kirsch seem to be familiar enough with the vehicle, though, and that helps a little. At this point, Laura thinks it would be foolish if she trusted those two with anything less than her whole life.

Carmilla takes the first pilot shift and after a few failed attempts to teach Danny that cheating is perfectly acceptable when you’re playing a card game of the same name, Laura abandons that particular mission and walks over to take a seat in the empty co-pilot’s chair instead. Carmilla looks over at her and then glances quickly over her shoulder at the other three huddled around the table, cards in hand.

“Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, sweetheart.” She says to Laura loudly enough that there is no doubt Danny can hear her.

“Watch it, Karnstein.”

Carmilla just laughs.

 

* * *

 

They’re somewhere over the Atlantic when Laura says, “So you’re into ballet, huh?”

“I much prefer waltzing.”

Laura thinks of Carmilla’s rigid posture and the deliberate nature of every single movement of her body and she thinks of how Carmilla puts a slump in her shoulders or slouches whenever she’s at Laura’s and talking to her father because it makes her seem less of a threat. It makes Laura wonder if she knows Carmilla at all or if all she’s seen of the other woman is the Black Widow doing her job.

“I’ve never waltzed in my life.” She says truthfully.

“I’ll show you.” A smile spreads over Carmilla’s features when Laura looks pointedly at her hands gripped around the plane’s controls. “Not _now_. When Kirsch takes over.”

Carmilla goes back to quietly piloting the plane and Laura looks out the window at the sky. She can’t help but think of what’s waiting for them in Russia. She can’t help but dread it.

Laura watches Carmilla’s face closely and then says, “Why do you think that Widow and ex-KGB agent ran away?”

There is a moment when Laura feels like she might have knocked Carmilla off-balance a little bit, but her eyes snap back into focus almost immediately afterward. Perfect posture, all stiff back and tight jaw.

“Does it matter? They're both dead.”

"It's nice to think that maybe he was helping her get away from a life she didn't want." Laura can picture the two in her head, dancing together at some upscale charity event or something, happy. "Maybe they left to find themselves a happy ending and to try to warn us about what was happening in Russia."

Carmilla's voice is scratchy when she responds, "What you've got to learn, Laura, is that people like me? We don't get happy endings."

Laura wants to prove her wrong.

 

* * *

 

The sky that Laura can see outside one of the plane’s windows is dark when Carmilla takes a seat beside her. Danny’s asleep somewhere near where they’d been playing cards earlier and LaF is so completely focused on their laptop that Laura’s afraid to talk should should she break their concentration.

“Wanna stretch your legs?” Carmilla is smiling at her so gently that it makes something in Laura’s stomach flutter. She nods and takes Carmilla’s outstretched hand, letting the other woman pull her to her feet.

"So." Laura says, marvelling at the softness of Carmilla's hand in hers. "Waltzing?"

“Waltzing.” Her companion agrees.

Carmilla pulls her in and Laura feels her breath catch because they’re _so_ _close_. And then she can’t keep her eyes off Carmilla anymore when they begin to move because she realizes that somewhere along the way, _Carmilla_ stopped being just another name to refer to the Black Widow as. Somewhere along the way, Carmilla has become someone she has learned to rely on, someone she associates with the comfort of warm food and companionship.

Carmilla catches her staring and smiles in a way that makes Laura’s skin tingle where they’re touching.

She’s attractive, Laura can admit as much. From the very beginning, she’s been drawn to the high cheekbones, the rigid jaw line, and the perfectly structured smile that Carmilla’s mouth seems to slip into by accident. She’s not Gwen, but for the first time, Laura finds that she’s perfectly content with that.

Gwen was her past. Carmilla could be — well, Carmilla could be _something_.

“In 1698,” Carmilla’s tone could be classified as offhand if their faces weren’t so close and her voice wasn’t so husky. “it may as well have been sex.”

 _Yeah_ , Carmilla’s a crush. And quite possibly the worst one ever.

 

* * *

 

Laura’s pretty sure she sleeps for ten hours straight once they’re settled into a quaint apartment that SHIELD arranged for them. She doesn’t even bother joining the argument about who gets the bed, which Kirsch and Danny have already started on. Kirsch is making a good point about how he exerts his back muscles more than any of them while Danny is in the middle of pointing out that the risk of LaFontaine being stepped on while they sleep on the ground is high and no one wants to deal with a huge green monster.

Laura tunes them out, makes herself a web canopy just underneath where the ceiling and the two walls of the cozy living room meet, climbs up onto it, and promptly falls asleep.

 

* * *

 

Carmilla is the one to wake her. Laura feels the kind of grogginess in her bones that comes from extended afternoon naps and she yawns, rolls over onto her stomach and away from Carmilla’s tapping hand on her ankle.

“Carm.” She tries to say with as much force as she can muster when she feels Carmilla nudging her again. “M’trying to sleep.”

The web dips and Laura heaves a sigh before turning over to face her assailant. Carmilla’s forearms are flat against the web and her chin is resting against her fists, one stacked on top of the other. When she sees Laura’s open eyes, she tilts her head and smiles.

“It’s nearly ten p.m., sweetheart. Our turn to stand watch.”

“Stand watch?”

She gets an eyeroll for that one.

“We’re watching the safe houses, following whoever comes and goes. Did you not listen to a single word Captain Know-It-All said earlier?”

Laura rubs at her eyes with a closed fist. She fights off another yawn before stretching her arms out above her head.

“Ten minutes, _solnyshko_ , or you’re walking there.”

 

* * *

 

Ten minutes is not nearly enough, but Laura does her best to bundle herself up in enough clothing to ensure she won’t freeze during the night and even manages a short trip to the bathroom. Kirsch is fast asleep almost directly in front of the bathroom door and Laura has to walk the wall in order not to wake him. Danny’s on the couch, out cold. She assumes the two of them had been on watch earlier.

When she’s ready to leave, LaF equips her with some sort of GPS anklet and a cellphone. They then sit back at the kitchen table where their computer is set up.

“I’ll be able to see yours and Carmilla's locations from here.” They point to the screen when Laura walks over to see what they’re working on. “And Carmilla has an earpiece. We don’t have one for you, Kirsch has his built into his hearing aids. We forgot he couldn’t share.”

Laura shrugs off LaFontaine’s apologetic smile and steps away from their work station. They turn to face her as she’s trying to fit shoes on over her suit, which is hidden under many layers of the warmest clothes her closet had to offer.

“Try not to do too much waltzing tonight, Laur.” Their smile is knowing and makes Laura blush. “Have eyes for someone who isn’t Carmilla for once, alright?”

 

* * *

 

“This is really not as exciting as they make it out to be in movies.” Laura opens the glove compartment of the rental car and feels around inside it for a moment. “Where are the binoculars?”

Carmilla hums in response, focused on the book she has open on the steering wheel.

“Carm.”

“What?”

“The binoculars.”

“Why on earth would either of us need binoculars? We’re genetically modified.” Carmilla flips a page. “You watch too many movies.”

“I like them. What’s your favorite?”

“Psycho.”

“What?”

“The film, cutie. Hitchcock.” Carmilla smiles. “What’s yours? Legally Blonde?”

“Don’t make fun of Legally Blonde.”

“I’m not. What’s your favourite?”

“Harriet the Spy.”

“Good to know.”

They watch the entrance of the building for another few hours with minimal talking. LaFontaine sometimes radios in to check on them, but leaves them alone for the most part. It’s kind of nice, until Laura gets cold sometime after two in the morning. She pulls her jacket closer to her and tries to power through the cold, but Carmilla notices anyway.

“Climb in.”

“What?”

“Next to me or whatever. I’m warm and you’re not.” She flashes a grin. “And I don’t bite.”

Laura is in the middle of shaking her head no when another shiver runs up her spine. She doesn’t know if she can survive Carmilla that close, but she’s _cold_ , and of course there’s no other option.

It takes the two of them a lot of maneuvering and twisting, but eventually they settle into a comfortable enough position for the both of them. Laura is basically on Carmilla’s lap, nose at her collarbone. Carmilla smells nice, kind of like pine trees, and Laura has to will her heartbeat to slow down before she embarrasses herself.

“You can sleep, if you want.”

Laura’s already falling asleep, “We’ll take turns.”

“Sure, cupcake.” There’s a pause and then Carmilla says, “The time has come, the Walrus said…”

Laura’s heart _melts_.

“To talk of many things.” She’s mumbling against the fabric of Carmilla’s jacket, she knows, but she doesn’t care anymore. “Of shoes and ships and sealing wax…”

“Of cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot.” Laura could get used to falling asleep like this, Carmilla’s voice in her ear. “And whether pigs have wings.”

“Are you sure it isn’t you who loves Harriet the Spy?”

“I’ll wake you up when I’m tired, _solnyshko_.”

“What does that mean?”

Carmilla is quiet for a minute and Laura is almost asleep when she hears a quiet, “Sunshine.”


	5. Chapter 5

They spend six more nights in the rental car. Each time, they take turns napping with Laura curled up on Carmilla’s lap. Each time, Laura wakes up with a brown paper bag in her lap of food as Carmilla drives them back to the apartment.

It’s Danny and Kirsch who catch the big break, which is probably good because of all the napping Laura and Carmilla do. They point the building out on the map as soon as they get back and Carmilla is tasked with getting the building’s blueprints from the library’s archives the next day. Laura wakes up after she has already left and it occurs to her sometime between Kirsch switching off his hearing aids in the middle of a Danny rant about snow and LaF making ridiculously delicious pancakes that this is the first time she’s been with the other members of their team without Carmilla around.

They all chip in when it comes to lunch and Laura is put in charge of slicing carrots. She’s focusing on cutting them into little strips like LaF had demonstrated for her earlier when the door opens and Carmilla leaves a soft touch at her hip as she passes by.

“It took you that long?” Kirsch has a shit-eating grin on his face. “C’mon, a full five hours to infiltrate a library and steal blueprints? You’re losing your touch.”

Carmilla sticks her middle finger up at him.

Danny insists they eat lunch before doing anything else so Carmilla is also given a task to perform. She stands at the counter beside Laura, chopping up something that Laura doesn’t really recognize. Carmilla mostly talks over Laura’s head at Kirsch, Danny, and LaFontaine as she works. Laura tries her best to focus on her carrots.

When she’s done and the carrots get the LaF stamp of approval, she gets a high five from Kirsch before washing her hands. He and Danny continue their discussion about the circus or something of the sort and so Laura walks back towards Carmilla.

“Hey, buttercup.” Laura smiles at her because _how can she not_? “Wanna do me a favour and tie my hair back?”

“Sure.” Laura pulls an extra hair tie out of her own pocket, thanking her past self all the while for having an extra. “Ponytail or bun?”

“Bun.”

Laura soon discovers that Carmilla’s hair is soft and she has a bit of a situation where she literally cannot stop her hands from combing through the strands as much as possible. A smug sense of accomplishment takes up residence in her chest when her fingers accidentally brush the nape of Carmilla’s neck and Carmilla’s body visibly jerks towards her at the touch.

There's no harm in flirting, right?

She leans in as close as she dares and Laura is positive her breath is tickling the skin of Carmilla's neck, "Good?"

Carmilla has to clear her throat before responding, "Good. Thanks, Laura."

"My pleasure."

 

* * *

 

Hours and hours spent gathered around the kitchen table later, they have a plan.

The only entrance to the Widow factory is a chimney. It's wide enough, according to the blueprint, for someone Laura's size to fit through. Danny suggests infiltrating and carrying out the mission as soon as possible while Kirsch advocates for surveying the inside through the chimney entrance and waiting it out.

Carmilla says, "Let's blow it up."

Laura remembers the little ballerinas, remembers the faces in the files, the names. Her stomach twists.

"There may be innocent children in there!" Danny looks shocked at the suggestion. "We can't just blow it up."

"Those innocent children will kill you as soon as you give them the chance." Carmilla's got that not-quite stable vulnerability in her eyes again. "It takes years. Years after the Red Room, after all of that before you can tell which way is up again. This is the only way, Danny."

"We're going to blow up children?" Laura can't wrap her mind around it and Danny's disbelief must be mirrored on her own face because Carmilla turns to her and takes a hold of her elbow. There's pleading written all over her face.

"Don't make me kill any of them by hand."

"They're kids, Milla." Kirsch mumbles, rubbing a hand over his face. "There _has_ to be another way."

"No. She's right." LaF cuts in. "We're heavily outnumbered and it's only a matter of time before they figure out we're watching them."

"So when?"

"The houses were all empty when we went in to check them out." Kirsch still looks distressed about the whole thing, but if there's one thing Laura knows about him it's that he adapts unbelievably well to decisions after they've been set. "So it looks like they're all gathered at the factory right now."

"As soon as possible then?" Carmilla asks.

He sighs, "As soon as possible."

 

* * *

 

Laura is given the job of planting the bomb at the bottom of the — LaF swears on their life after a day spent studying the structure of the building — unused chimney. It makes sense, the tube is Laura-shaped and she's the only one with the ability to get herself back out the chimney again. But once they're waiting it out in an alleyway near the building, the sense of the decision is lost on her. Her hands shake and she climbs up the fire escape of one of the apartment blocks, bomb tucked under one arm, wanting a moment to collect herself.

She's nervous.

She knows, logically, that the job is simple. But also knowing that the fate of hundreds — including those who could potentially be affected by a successful Black Widow Program — lie in her hands is jarring and intimidating.

Laura gets a few minutes of being alone before she becomes aware of Carmilla looking up at her from the base of the fire escape.

"Everyone else has moved into position." Carmilla says and Laura is shocked at how clear her voice is from so far until she remembers LaF had outfitted her with a newly ordered earpiece this morning. "Hop on down when you're ready."

Laura aims for playful, "A spider doesn't hop."

"I hate to break it to you, but you're part bunny rabbit, sweetheart. Have you seen yourself when you're angry? You do this little scrunched up face — "

"No flirting over the coms." Kirsch's voice cuts in. "Am I really gonna have to take my hearing aid out in the middle of a mission?"

"Sorry, Kirsch." Laura says. Carmilla only huffs.

"Hop down."

"I'll get down my own way." Laura says, grinning at the idea that pops into her head.

"Whatever."

Laura rolls her eyes at the obvious challenge. She shoots a web out to the building opposite, making a bridge above the alley. She then crawls to the middle, attaches another string at the midway point, readjusts her grip on the bomb, and drops herself upside down just over Carmilla's shoulder.

"Boo." She says, already anticipating the eye roll.

"Funny." _There it is_. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be." Laura mumbles, beginning to ready herself to flip back on her feet. Carmilla lays a gentle hand on her forearm before she can move, though.

"No one else can make this drop as well as you can, _solnyshko_ , alright? You can do it."

"Yeah." Laura tries to sound sure of herself, but it comes out flat even to her own ears.

"Come on, cupcake. A little more enthusiasm."

"I'm nervous."

Carmilla pauses and steps closer, "The time has come, The Walrus said. To talk of many things — "

Laura holds the web with her feet for a moment so she can pull her mask past her mouth. She wants Carmilla to see the smile that the words have put on her face.

"Of shoes and ships and sealing wax." Carmilla is mumbling a little bit and she's stepping closer and closer and Laura closes her eyes, glad for the mask covering half her face. She reaches up to grab at the web again because otherwise, she's going to do something stupid like pull Carmilla towards her. "Of cabbages and kings — "

Laura can feel Carmilla's breath on her skin.

"Can I kiss you?"

Laura nods.

It's like sweet torture, having Carmilla's hands on her jaw and lips on her lips, but not being able to weave her own hands in those dark curls. Laura's heart is pounding in her head as soon as their lips meet and when Carmilla's lips open against hers, she wastes no time in sucking Carmilla's tongue into her mouth.

The small sound Carmilla makes in the back of her throat is so _hot_ that Laura almost doesn't hear Kirsch's voice in her ear, "Are you two alive?"

Carmilla steps away almost immediately. She looks wrecked, her eyes are darker than Laura's ever seen them and her cheeks are tinged pink.

"Patience, Hawkeye." Even Carmilla's voice sounds a little shaky. She blinks a few times before smiling at Laura one last time. She then turns her back and begins walking down the alley while Laura flips herself right side up.

She watches Carmilla walk away on unsteady legs for a bit before pulling her mask back over her face.

If she can shake up The Black Widow, she can plant a bomb.

 

* * *

 

It's easy enough to get up to the roof of the building. Danny and Kirsch keep watch while LaF sits in the rental car a block away. There are too many other buildings to risk an appearance from the green giant.

Carmilla unscrews some bolts and hacks off some pieces of metal with a tool Laura doesn’t know the name of before seeming to lose her patience with the whole thing and roundhousing the contraption blocking the tube off in one go.

“Well that’s certainly a way to do it.” Danny comments over the com.

“Alright.” Carmilla says, she’s crouched at the side of the opening. “In and out, you understand me? No taking the scenic route.”

“Gotcha.” Laura is about to start making her way down when Carmilla’s hand shoots out to grip hers.

“And if anyone comes at you with a gun, turn sideways to give them a smaller target. Climb in zig-zags if they’ve got a knife.” She bites her lip and then reaches up and pulls at the mask to expose some of Laura’s jawline. Laura sighs as she plants a soft kiss there.“Careful, Laura.”

“I got this, Carm.”

The tube is narrow, but it’s wide enough that Laura can comfortably control the speed of her descent instead of free falling into nothingness.

“Lawrence,” she hears Kirsch say, “Do you see that?”

Laura tries not to pay the conversation in her ear any attention. When she gets to the bottom, she lays the bomb carefully down on the cold hearth, making a mental note to apologize to LaF later about doubting them, and switches on the device the way she’s been taught. There’s no one in sight.

“You just about done there, Spidey? We have company.” Danny sounds calm despite her words being anything but. “Come join the party.”

Not wanting to risk being heard, Laura doesn’t respond and instead scrambles back up the chimney as fast as she dares. When she gets to the top, no one pays her any attention. Carmilla, Kirsch, and Danny are fighting off about ten Black Widows each. Laura uses a web to snatch a gun out of the hands of someone aiming at Carmilla and dodges a bullet herself.

It’s utter and complete chaos.

“They don’t know about the bomb. Don’t give yourselves away now, but get off that roof as soon as possible.” LaF comes in clear through the coms. “I’ll drive closer.”

There’s a lot of gunfire. Mostly from Carmilla as she is quick on the trigger, and accurate. Laura scrambles around to help. They’re almost home free when a pair of particularly accurate shots nick Laura’s web cartridges.

When the girl advances on her, Laura manages to kick away the gun, but the girl’s strong, and ruthless. Before she knows it, her head is hanging off of the side of the roof and there’s a knife pressed up against her throat. She kicks her legs up, trying to dislodge her combatant, or slip away and off the building, but the girl has a firm grip and the blade starts digging into her skin —

Then there’s a shot. One too accurate to be anyone _but_ Carmilla, and the girl slumps off of Laura, a bullet in her brain. Laura presses a hand to the underside of her jaw and sits up. She’s just about to say thanks when another shot rings out.

Carmilla staggers and Laura crawls up on her feet, there’s a pool of blood seeping into Carmilla’s suit around her chest and before Laura can do anything, Carmilla is toppling off the building, her body limp.

Laura’s seen this before. She’s been in this spot every night in her head for what feels like years until Carmilla came along. A body free-falling off of a building and her at the top, wanting to stop it.

And again, she’s in a lose-lose situation.

She tries to catch Carmilla with a web, but the damage to her cartridges had been done and all that comes out are strings of unconnected webs. Laura’s aware she’s yelling and crying and Kirsch is holding her back by the shoulders, probably to keep her from flinging herself off the building as well.

“The Green Giant’s got her, Laura.” Kirsch is yelling too. “LaFontaine’s got her. Come on, Laura. Let’s get off this goddamn building! Work with me.”

She feels numb and she doesn’t remember much of the climb down. Her heart feels like it’s stopped beating and her hands are shaking beyond control. When they all pile into the rental car, Kirsch ends up at the wheel while Danny and a rattled LaFontaine work on Carmilla in the backseat. Laura’s eyes are glued to Carmilla’s closed eyes and unmoving body.

She’s not breathing.

“Hit the button, Hollis.” Danny calls out once the building’s out of sight. Laura doesn’t hesitate.

The explosion rings out in the night, but Laura can’t even hear it. It’s like time slows down, until everything _is_ silent again. Sooner rather than later though, LaFontaine counting compressions is  the only thing audible over the sirens.

Unbelievably, Carmilla splutters back into life.

“She needs blood.” LaF is saying. “She’s lost so much. Kirsch, hurry.”

Kirsch doesn’t need to be told twice.


	6. Chapter 6

On the plane home, the same night, morning, or whatever it is, Carmilla is still unconscious. It makes Laura anxious, sitting beside where LaFontaine is keeping watch over her, so she goes to sit in the co-pilot’s seat beside Kirsch.

“You alright, little nerd?”

Laura shakes her head.

“Milla’s tough. She’ll get through this. Been her partner for more than ten years, I _know_ she’s hard to kill off.” Kirsch continues when Laura doesn’t say anything. “She’s good, Laura. She’ll be okay. Have I told you about the time she let me beat her at sparring once before a mission I was worried about?”

“She let you what?”

Kirsch chuckles, “It wasn’t clear at the time, but she let me knock her down for the first time just before we went off to Budapest. Man, I was on such a high afterwards. It works well usually, her mind games. What’d she do to calm your nerves earlier?”

 _Oh_.

 

* * *

 

Life goes back to normal when Laura gets home. Relatively, anyways.

She says no to SHIELD offering her a permanent spot on the team and a home at their base in California. She has her Dad to look after and school and a job. It’s not like there’s anything she can have in California that she can’t have in New York.

She doesn’t see Carmilla again after she gets off that plane.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, she wakes up in a cold sweat, her second and middle fingers digging into her palms. She's back to having nightmares about standing at the edge of a rooftop except this time it's Carmilla slipping through her fingers.

Some nights, she has dreams about going through the Red Room herself or being blown up and she knows that she can't carry the blame of taking all those lives by herself because all she really did was plant the bomb, but _she planted the bomb_. All those people, dead. Thanks to her.

Laura can never fall back to sleep during those nights.

 

 

* * *

 

It’s two months of radio silence until one morning as her Dad’s leaving for work.

Laura doesn’t know how to respond to the sight of Carmilla at her doorstep, but she waves a cheerful goodbye to her Dad anyways. It’s only when he’s out of sight that she lets herself focus on the woman inside her house, paper bag in hand.

“I brought you breakfast.” Carmilla says.

“What are you doing here?” Laura asks at the same time.

Carmilla takes a step further inside. She looks frail, a little under the weather, maybe. Laura worries a little bit in her head, but she knows Carmilla made a full recovery from Volgograd, made sure by asking LaFontaine over email, so she also knows it's probably just a side effect of all the recovery. But still, she doesn’t like Carmilla like this.

“I don’t know what I did.” Carmilla is still taking careful steps towards where Laura is standing at the foot of the stairs. “But whatever it is, I’m sorry."

“Whatever it is?” Laura can’t help the humorless laugh that she lets out. “ _You played me_.”

Carmilla looks genuinely confused,“When?”

“When I was nervous. In Volgograd. Kirsch told me about how you let him beat you once to build up his confidence and that’s all well and good, but how you could be so cruel — “

“No. God, no. _No_.” Carmilla sets the paper bag down on the floor and steps even closer. Laura doesn’t meet her eyes. “I wasn’t — Why would I play you like that? I could never ever play you, Laura. That wasn’t me playing mind games with you.”

“What was it, then?”

Carmilla sighs and brings a hand up to hover over Laura’s jaw, “Can I — “

Laura shakes her head and Carmilla's hand drops down to her side immediately.

“I wasn’t thinking when I kissed you.” Laura knows her face twists at the words because even this long after, the thought of Carmilla not wanting her still _stings_. “ No , can you listen for once? I wasn’t thinking about the mission, any of it. I wanted you. I thought you knew that, with the flirting and the me being really obvious. I _wanted_ to kiss you. I couldn’t care less about the stupid mission, in that moment.”

Laura looks at Carmilla’s hands, clenched into fists at her sides and the way Carmilla’s turned a little bit sideways. What had she said on that rooftop? _If anyone comes at you with a gun, turn sideways to give them a smaller target_.

Laura doesn’t want to use her as target practice.

She clears her throat, “Wanted?”

“Want.” Carmilla clarifies immediately. “Want. Since even before Russia. And now, after. _Still_.”

Laura swallows and reaches out to rest a hand against Carmilla’s hip. She sucks in a breath and watches Carmilla’s eyes, “Can I kiss you?”

Carmilla leans forward so that their foreheads are touching, “Yeah. _God_ , yes.”

So Laura does. Once, twice, three times. The fourth time, it’s Carmilla who initiates it, one hand tracing the fading scar just underneath Laura’s jaw, "You have no idea how much I've missed you, sunshine."

" _Solnyshko_." Laura supplies.

"Yeah." Carmilla's fingers are still tracing over the scar. " _Solnyshko_."

Laura feels like her heart's about to beat out of her chest and there are so many things she wants to say, but she knows there'll be time for serious later and maybe right now she wants to share a lighthearted morning with someone who definitely deserves it. So she says, “That tickles, Carm.”

Carmilla smiles and presses a kiss there, “Breakfast?”

Laura nods and kisses her again.

 

* * *

 

She still has nightmares, but most nights, Carmilla is there to help her chase them away.

And maybe it isn't a happy ending yet, but Laura's more than happy to continue being sunshine for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm on tumblr as sedinbrothers if you'd like to come say hi!


End file.
